UPSC Articles
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) may introduce new monsoon models
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-I – Geography
In news
- The India Meteorological Department (IMD) may introduce new monsoon models in 2021 to better forecast changes in rainfall.
Key takeaways
- There were three different models that could be tested this year.
- Two of them were dynamical models and one a statistical model.
- In the former, the climate on any particular day is simulated on supercomputers and meteorologists observe the changing daily output.
- The other is the traditional statistical model that equates relationships of physical parameters, such as for instance sea surface temperatures, snowfall, the temperature of landmass etc, with the actual observed rainfall in the past.
- The three models under consideration are:
- 12 global circulation models (dynamical) whose outputs would be combined into a single one;
- a model that gauges rainfall based on the sea surface temperature in the tropics (developed by Professor Sumant Nigam, University of Maryland, U.S.) and
- the statistical model based on climate variables observed during the pre-monsoon.
- All of them are smaller models which are combined to arrive at an average value.
- The traditional statistical model would continue to be used this year.
Do you know?
- The monsoon that concluded in 2020 was unique, in that with monsoon 2019, it was only the third time in a century that India saw back-to-back years of above normal rainfall.
- In both years, the IMD failed to forecast the magnitude of the excess and only indicated that the monsoon would be “above normal”.
Related articles:
- Subdued Northeast Monsoon: Click here
- Why predicting monsoons in India is a tricky job? Click here
